Application Based Vertical Handoff Decision in Heterogeneous Network

AbstractThe future generation of wireless system is expected to provide multimedia, multi class services any time anywhere with seamless mobility and Quality of service (QoS). In such environment, optimal vertical handoff is a challenging issue. Unnecessary handoff causes wastage of network resources and thus affects the QoS of network. In this paper, we have proposed the vertical handoff decision depends on coverage area of the network and the velocity of the mobile user. We have determined application-wise critical speed for particular coverage range of network during which handoff is beneficial. In our work, we have considered applications like HDTV, MPEG-4, and H.261 in heterogeneous network of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) and WLAN. The simulation is performed using Network Simulator NS-2 with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) mobility module